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I * ADDRESS 



NEW-ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION 



*5rruic0 of tl)c UnxUh QiattB 



ADDRESS TO PRESIDENT TYLER; 



ADOPTED IN 



FANEUIL HALL, MAY 31, 1843. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY OLIVER JOHNSON, 
1843. 



ADDRESS TO THE SLAVES. 



BRETHREN AND FELLOW COUNTRYMEN: 

Assembled in Convention, from all parts of New-Eng- 
land, in Faneuil Hall, the Old Cradle of Liberty, in 
the oily of Boston, we, the friends of universal eman- 
cipation — the enemies of slavery, whether at home or 
abroad — your advocates and defenders — would im- 
prove this opportunity to address to you words of sym- 
pathy, of consolation, of encouragement and hope. 

We wish you to know who you are — by whom and 
for what purpose you were created — who are your op- 
pressors, and what they profess to receive as self-evi- 
dent truths, in regard to the rights of man — who are 
your friends, and in what manner they stand ready to 
aid you — what has been effected in your cause, within 
the last ten years, in the United States — and what is 
the prospect of your emancipation from chains and ser- 
vitude. 

In tlie first place, then, you are men — created in the 
same divine image as all other men — as good, as noble, 
as free, by birth and destiny, as your masters — as much 
entitled to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' 
as those who cruelly enslave you — made but a little 
lower than the angels of heaven, and destined to an 
immortal state of existence — equal members of the 
great human family. These truths you must believe 
and understand, if you desu-e to have your chains brok- 
en, and your oppression come to a speedy end. 



Know this, also, that God never made a slave master, 
nor a slave. He abhors cruelty and injustice in every 
form, and his judgments have been poured out on those 
nations that have refused to let the oppressed go free. 
He pities all who are sighing in bondage, and will work 
out their redemption, at whatever cost to those who are 
crushing them in the dust. He ' has made of one blood 
all nations of men, to dwell on all the face of the earth' 
— not to war with each other — not to defraud, degrade, 
torment, persecute, or oppress each other — but to enjoy 
equal rights and perfect liberty, to love and do good to 
each other, to dwell together in unity, lie is no re- 
specter of persons, but has given to all the stamp of his 
divinity, and his tender mercies are over all the works 
of his hands. ' Thus saith the Lord, Execute judgment 
and righteousness, and deliver the s{)oilcd out of the 
hand of the oppressor; and do no wrong, do no violence 
to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither 
shed innocent blood.' Such is your Creator, Father, 
and God. 

Your masters say that you are an inferior race ; that 
you were born to be slaves ; that it is by the w^ill and 
direction of God, that you are held in captivity. Your 
religious teachers declare that the Bible (which they 
call the word of God) sanctions slavery, and requires 
you to submit to it as of righful authority. Believe 
them not I They all speak falsely, and the truth is not 
in them. They libel the character of God, and pervert 
the teachings of the Bible in the most awful manner. 
They combine to take from you all your hard earnings ; 
they cover your bodies with stripes ; they will not allow 
you to obtain light and knowledge ; they call you their 
property, and sell you and your children'at auction, as 
they do their cattle and swine. If they will steal, will 
they not lie ? Listen not to what they tell you. They 
are the enemies of God and man. Their religion is of 
Beelzebub, the prince of devils ; not of Jesus, the Son 
of God. As long as they keep you in slavery, they defy 
Jehovah, reject Christ, and grieve the Holy Spirit. 



God made you to be free — free as the birds that 
cleave the air, or sing on the branches — free as the 
sunshine that gladdens the earth — free as the winds 
that sweep over sea and land ; — free at your birth, free 
during yonr whole life, free to-day, this hour, this mo- 
ment ! He has given you faculties to be improved, and 
souls to live forever. He has made you to glorify him 
in your bodies and spirits, to be happy here and hereaf- 
ter, and not to be a degraded and miserable race Your 
masters have no more right to enslave you, than you 
have to enslave them — to sell your children, and lace- 
rate your bodies, and take your lives, than you have to 
inflict these outrages on them and theirs. The com- 
plexion of your masters is no better than yours — a 
black skin is as good as a white one. It is for you to 
say when, or where, or for whom you will work ; where 
you will go, or in wliat part of the country or the world 
you will reside. If your masters prevent you from do- 
ing as you wish, they rob 3'ou of an inahenable right, 
and your blood will be required at their hands. If you 
submit unresistingly to their commands, do it for Christ's 
sake, (who died the just for the unjust,) and not because 
they claim a rightful authority over you — for they have 
no such authority. 

Your masters tell us that you do not wish to be free ; 
that you are contented and happy as slaves; that you 
are much attached to their persons, and ready to lay 
down your lives to save them from harm ; that you have 
an abundance of good clothes, good food, and all that 
you need to make your situation comfortable ; that your 
tasks are hght, and easily performed ; and that you are 
much better off than such of your number as have been 
liberated from bondage. We do not believe one word 
that they say. We know, from the natural desire for 
liberty that bums in the bosom of every human being — 
from the horribly unjust code of laws by which you are 
governed — from the attempts of slaves, in all countries, 
to obtain their freedom by insurrection and massacre — 



from the vigilance with which all yonr movements are 
watched, as though yon only waited for an op])ortiinity 
to strike an effectual blow for your rights — from the 
testimony of thousands of slaves, who have escaped to 
the North and to Canada — from the numerous adver- 
tisements, in sonthern newspapers, of rnnaways from 
the plantations — that yonr masters are trying to deceive 
us. We are sure that your situation is a dreadful one, 
and that there is nothing in the world 3^ou desire so 
much ns liberty. 

We know that you are driven to the field like beasts, 
under the lash of cruel overseers or drivers, and there 
compelled to toil from earliest dawn till late at night: 
that you do not have sufficient clothing or food ; that 
you have no laws to protect you from the most terrible 
punishment your masters may choose to inflict on your 
persons; that many of your bodies are covered with 
scars, and branded with red hot irons; that you arc con- 
stantly liable to receive wounds and bruises, stripes, 
mutilations, insults and outrages innumerable ; that your 
groans are borne to us on every southern breeze, your 
tears are falling thick and fast, your blood is flowing 
continually ; that you are regarded as four-footed beasts 
and creeping things, and bouglit and sold with farming 
utensils and household furniture. We know all these 
things, and a great deal more, in regard to your condition. 

Who, O unhappy countrymen, are your oppressors ? 
They are the descendants of those, who, in 1770, threw 
off the British yoke, and for seven years waged war 
against a despotic power, until at length they secured 
their independence. In a certain Declaration which 
they published to the world, at that period, and which 
is now read and subscribed to on the fourth of July an- 
nually, they said — ' We hold these truths to be self- 
evident — that all men are created equal ; that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; 
that among these are life, hberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness : — That, to secure these rights, governments 



are instituted among men, deriving their just powers 
from the consent of the governed; that whenever any 
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, 
it is the right of the })eople to alter or aboHsh it, and to 
institute a new government, laying its foundation on 
such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, 
as to them shall seem most likety to effect their safety 
and happiness. . . . When a long train of abuses and 
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evin- 
ces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, 
it is their risht, it is their duty, to THKOW OFF 
SUCH GOVERNMENT, and to provide new guards 
for their future security.' 

In acknowledging the tmths set forth in this Declara- 
tion to be self-evident, your masters, in reducing you to 
slavery, are condemned as hypocrites and liars, out of 
their own mouths. By precept and example, they de- 
clare that it is both your right and your duty to wage 
war against them, and to wade through their blood, if 
necessary, to secure your own freedom. They glor}^ in 
the revolutionary war, and greatly honor the names of 
those heroes who took up arms to destroy their oppres- 
sors. One of those heroes — Patrick Henry, of Vir- 
ginia — exclaimed, ' Give me liberty, or give me death 1 ' 
Another — Joseph Warren, of Massachusetts — said, 
* My sons, scorn to be slaves I ' Their ciy was, 

' Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not, 
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow? ' 

When, a few years since, the Poles rose in insurrection 
against the Russian power — and the Greeks rushed to 
the strife of blood against their Turkish oppressors — 
and the South Americans broke in pieces the Spanish 
yoke, and made themselves free and independent — 
your masters, in common with all the people of the 
North, cheered them on to the conflict, and sent them 
banners and arms to enable them to triumph in the 
cause of liberty — exclaiming, 



* O, where 's the slave, so lowly, 
Condemned to chains unholy, 
Who, could he burst his bonds at first, 
"Would pine beneath them slowly ? ' 

Yet, should you attempt to regain your freedom in 
the same manner, you would be branded as murderers 
and monsters, and slaughtered without mercy ! But 
the celebrated Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, has truly 
said that, in such a contest, the Almighty has no attri- 
bute which can take side with your oppressors ; and, 
though a slaveholder himself, he was forced many years 
ago to exclaim, in view of your enslavement, — * I trem- 
ble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that 
his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering num- 
bers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of 
the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is 
among possible events ; that it may become probable 
by supernatural inteference I' And he concluded by 
expressing the hope that the way was ' preparing, un- 
der the auspices of Heaven, for a total emancipation, 
and that this was disposed, in the order of events, to be 
with the consent of the masters, rather than by their ex- 
tirpation.' 

Thomas Jefferson wrote in this manner more than 
sixty years since. At that ])criod, your number was a 
little more than half a million ; now it is more than 
two miUions and a half Sad and dreary has been your 
existence up to the present hour ; and, doubtless, you 
have almost given up all hope of ever celebrating the 
day of jubilee — your own emancipation — on this side 
of the grave. 

Take courage ! Be filled with hope and comfort ! — 
Your redemption draws nigh, for the Lord is mightily at 
work in your behalf Is it not frequently the darkest 
before day-break? The word has gone forth that you 
shall be delivered from your chains, and it has not been 
spoken in vain. 

Although you have many enemies, yet you have also 



9 

many friends — warm, faithful, sympathizing, devoted 
friends — who will never abandon your cause ; who are 
pledged to do all in their power to break your chains ; 
who are laboring to effect your emancipation without 
delay, in a peaceable manner, without the shedding of 
blood; who regard you as brethren and countrymen, 
and fear not the frowns or threats of your masters. — 
They call themselves abolitionists. They have already 
suffered much, in various parts of the country, for re- 
buking those who keep you in slavery — for demanding 
your immediate liberation — for revealing to the people 
the horrors of your situation — for boldly opposing a cor- 
rupt public sentiment, by which you are kept in the 
great southern prison-house of bondage. Some of them 
have been beaten with stripes ; others have been strip- 
ped, and covered with tar and feathers ; others have 
had their property taken from them, and burnt in the 
streets ; others have had large rewards offered by your 
masters for their seizure ; others have been cast into 
jails and penitentiaries ; others have been mobbed and 
lynched with great violence ; others have lost their re- 
putation, and been ruined in their business; others have 
lost their lives. All these, and many other outrages of 
an equally grievous kind, they have suffered for your 
sakes, and because they are your friends. They cannot 
go to the South, to see and converse with you, face to 
face ; for, so ferocious and bloody-minded are your task- 
masters, they would be put to an ignominious death as 
soon as discovered. Besides, it is not necessary that 
they should incur this peril; for it is solely by the aid 
of the people of the North, that you are held in bonci- 
age, and, therefore, they find enough to do at home, to 
make the people here your friends, and to break up all 
connexion with the slave system. They have proved 
themselves to be truly courageous, insensible to danger, 
superior to adversity, strong in principle, invincible in 
argument, animated by the spirit of impartial benevo- . 
lence, unwearied in devising ways and means for your 



10 

deliverance, the best friends of the whole country, the 
noblest champions of the human race. Ten years ago, 
they were so few and feeble as only to excite universal 
contempt; now they number in their ranks, hundreds 
of thousands of the people. Then, they had scarcely 
a single anti-slavery society in operation ; now they 
have thousands. Then, they had only one or two pres- 
ses to plead your cause ; now they have multitudes. — 
They are scattering all over the land their newspapers, 
books, pamphlets, tracts, and other publications, to hold 
up to infamy the conduct of your oppressors, and to 
awaken sympathy in your behalf They are continual- 
ly holding anti-slavciy meetings in all parts of the free 
States, to tell the people the story of your wrongs. — 
Wonderful has been the change eilected in public feel- 
ing, under God, through their instrumentality. Do not 
fear that they will grow weary in your service. They 
are confident of success, in the end. They know that 
the Lord Almighty is with them — that truth, justice, 
right, are with them — that you are with them. They 
know, too, that your masters are cowardly and weak, 
through conscious wrong-doing, and already begin to 
falter in their course. Lift up your heads, O ye despair- 
ing slaves I Yet a little while, and your chains sliall 
snap asunder, and you shall be tortured and plundered 
no more I Then, fatliers and mothers, your children 
shall be yours, to bring tlicm up in the nurture and ad- 
monition of the Lord. Then, husbands and wives, now 
torn from each other's arms, you shall be reunited in the 
flesh, and man then shall no longer dare to put asunder 
those whom God hath joined together. Then, brothers 
and sisters, you shall be sold to the remorseless slave 
speculator no more, but dwell together in unity. * God 
hasten that joyful day I ' is now the daily prayer of 
millions. 

The weapons \vith which the abolitionists seek to ef- 
fect your deliverance are not bowie knives, pistols, 
swords, guns, or any other deadly implements. They 



11 

consist of appeals, warnings, rebukes, arguments and 
facts, addressed to the understandings, consciences and 
hearts of the peo})le. Many of your friends beheve 
that not even those who are o})pressed, whether their 
skins are white or black, can shed the blood of their 
oppressors in accordance with the will of God ; while 
many others beheve that it is right for the oppressed to 
rise and take their liberty by violence, if they can 
secure it in no other manner ; but they, in common with 
all your friends, believe that every attempt at insurrec- 
tion would be attended with disaster and defeat, on your 
part, because you are not strong enough to contend with 
the military power of the nation ; consequently, their 
advice to you is, to be patient, long-suftering, and sub- 
missive, yet awhile longer — trusting that, by the bless- 
ing of the Most High on their labors, you will yet be 
emancipated without shedding a drop of your masters' 
blood, or losing" a drop of your own. 

The abolitionists of the North are the only true and 
unyielding friends on whom you can rely. They will 
never deceive nor betray you. They have made your 
cause their own, and they mean to be true to them- 
selves and to you, whatever may be the consequence. 
They are continually increasing in number, in influence, 
in enterprise and determination; and, judging from the 
success which has already attended their measures, they 
anticipate that, in a comparatively short period, the en- 
tire North will receive you with open arms, and give 
you shelter and protection, as fast as you escape from 
the South. "We, who now address you, are united with 
them in spirit and design. We glory in the name of 
abolitionists, for it signifies friendship for all who are 
pining in servitude. We advise you to seize every op- 
portunity to escape from your masters, and, fixing your 
eyes on the North star, travel on until you reach a land of 
liberty. You are not the property of your masters. God 
never made one human being to be owned by another. 
Your right to be free, at any moment, is undeniable ; and 



12 

it is your duty, Avhenever you can, peaceably to escape 
from the plantations on which you are confined, and as- 
sert your manhood. 

Already, within a few years, twenty thousand of your 
number have successfully run away, many of whom 
are now residing at the North, but a very large propor- 
tion of whom are living in Canada, enjoying safety and 
freedom under the British flag. To that country, the 
slave-hunters dare not go ; nor will they much longer dare 
to come to the North, in pursuit of fugitive slaves. But, 
while we thus invite and encourage you to transform 
yourselves from things into men by flight, we would coun- 
sel you to use the utmost caution in attempting to escape; 
for many dangers yet lurk in the path of every fugitive, 
and should any of you be caught, you know that your fate 
would be a terrible one. Still, wo assure you that there 
are now thousands in the free States to succor you, 
where, a few years since, scarcely an individual could 
be found to hide the outcast. If you come to us, and 
are hungry, we will feed you ; if thirsty, we will give 
you drink; if naked, we will clothe you; if sick, we 
will administer to your necessities; if in prison, we will 
visit you ; if you need a hiding-place from the face of 
the pursuer, we will provide one that even blood-hounds 
cannot scent out. This is the pledge we sacredly give 
to you. 

We are not in favor of sending you to Africa, for we 
regard you as fellow-countrymen, and, with few excep- 
ceptions, you have a right to claim this as your native 
land, for you were born on its soil. We do not, there- 
fore, make your removal out of the country a condition 
of freedom, but demand for you all that we claim for 
ourselves — liberty, equal rights, equal privileges. 

Your masters threaten that, if we do not stop plead- 
ing your cause, and assailing their slave system, they 
will dissolve the Union. Such a dissolution has for us 
no terrors ; for we regard it as far })referable to a per- 
petuity of slavery. Such a dissolution you would have 



13 

no occasion to lament ; for it would enable you to ob- 
tain your freedom and independence in a single day. — 
Your masters are only two hundred and fifty thousand 
in number; you are nearly three millions; and what 
could they do, if they should be abandoned to their fate 
by the North ? If it were not now for the compact ex- 
isting between the free and the slave States, by which 
the wdiole militaiy power of the nation is pledged to sup- 
press all insurrections, you would have long ere this 
been free. Your blood is the cement which binds the 
American Union together ; your bodies are crushed be- 
neath the massy weight of this Union ; and its repeal 
or dissolution would ensure the downfall of slavery. — 
We tell your masters that we shall not be intimidated 
by their threats, but shall continue to expose their guilt, 
to rebuke their oppression, to agitate the public mind, 
to demand your release, until there shall be none to help 
them, and they be separated from all political and re- 
ligious connexion with the people of the North — or 
(what we most earnestly desire as a matter of choice) 
until liberty be proclaimed throughout all the land unto 
all the inhabitants thereof, wiih the hearty consent of 
the whole people. 

Done in Faneuil Hall, May 31, 1843. 

EDMUND QUINCY, President. 
William A. White, 
Eliza J. Kenny, ^ Secretaries. 

Wai. p. Atkinson, 



ADDRESS 



To John Tyler, President of the United States. 

Sir : — With all the respect due- to the President of 
the United States — with no intention or wish to give " 
yon any personal aflront — but animated by the spirit of 
liberty, which impels us to seek the emancipation of all 
who are pining in slavery — we, the undersigned, in- 
habitants of New-England, desire to improve the op- 
portunity presented by yonr visit to the metropolis of 
Massachusetts, to beseech you, in the sacred name of 
God, as an act of simple justice, as a duty which you 
are solemnly bound to discharge, instantly to liberate all 
your slaves, and to restore to them those inalienable 
rights, of wiiich they have been unjustly deprived from 
their birth. 

The existence of slavery in this republic is at war 
with all its ])rinciples and professions — a dark stain on 
its character — a visible curse on its prosperity — a hor- 
rible anomaly, which sul)jects the American people 
to the rebuke and opprol)rium of the old world — and 
a dangerous clement in our national organization, the 
speedy removal of which is essential to the ])reserva- 
tion of the Union. It fills us with grief and shame as 
American citizens. We should deem ourselves un- 
worthy of the name, if we did not seek its immediate 
annihilation bv every lawful and christian instrumen- 
tality. 



15 

Sir, you are a slaveholder I Though you occupy the 
highest office in the gift of the people, yet you are a 
slaveholder I You subscribe to the declaration of inde- 
pendence, in which it is explicitly declared to be a self- 
evident truth, that the Creator has given to every hu- 
man being an inalienable right to liberty; yet you are a 
slaveholder ! You have sworn to support the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, the design of which, accord- 
ing to its preamble, is * to estabhsh justice, and secure 
the blessings of liberty ' to the people ; yet you are a 
slaveholder ! You profess to believe in the Christian 
religion, which requires that every man should love his 
neighbor as himself, and do to others what he would 
have them do to him ; yet you are a slaveholder ! In 
yoHr messages to Congress you have denounced the Af- 
rican slave trade as ])iracy, and, consequently all who 
enslave Africans as pirates ; yet you are a slaveholder ! 
You have come from Washington to Boston, expressly 
to join with a great multitude of your fellow-country- 
men in celebrating the completion of the Bunker Hill 
monument, which has been erected to commemorate 
the heroic deeds and to perpetuate the memories of 
those who bled and died in the cause of human liberty; 
yet you are a slaveholder I 

Sir, we know not how to manifest a deeper interest 
in your welfare, or a higher regard for your reputation, 
or more fervent love for our country, than to ask you to 
break the chains of your slaves, and thus practically to 
■acknowledge the rights of man. Such a beneficent ex- 
ample, set by you as the Chief Magistrate of this great 
republic, would go far, very far, toward effecting the en- 
tire abohtion of slavery, and consequently, the emanci- 
pation of nearly three millions of the American people- 
It might subject you, temporarily, to the ridicule of the 
heartless, the curses of the profane, the contempt of the 
vulgar, the scorn of the proud, the hatred of the brutal, 
the rage of the selfish, the hostility of the powerful ; 
but it would asstu'edly secure to you the applause and 



16 

admiration of the truly great and good, and render your 
name illustrious, to the latest posterity. 

In the name, then, of justice and humanity — by the 
duty we all owe to the living God — we implore you 
to liberate our brethren, whom you hold in bondage. 

Bontiin FaneuU Hall, May 31. 1843. 

[The foregoing Address received the signatures of the members of the Cou- 
vention individually.] 



